Such a wonderful description of the challenges and joys of editing! Thank you, Priscilla, for sharing with us these years of your personal and professional growth.
I’m so inspired by Priscilla’s whole trajectory! I’m an editor myself, and this piece reminds me of why I love what I do, why it’s such a privilege, and how wide open a future of editing can be for me if I stay willing and grateful. Thank you!
This is a beautiful piece of writing, I found myself quite moved by the arc of your life. And the structure of this piece gives me a sense of how good your work as an editor would have been - how lucky those authors were.
Thank you so much for this, Kaspa, and for your kind attention. Yes, the structure was basically chronological, but it always kind of surprises me how much crafting it takes to make even a chronological structure sing as a story—so many choices about which moments to pull out, how to frame them, and so forth.
In writing, my own bugaboo is boring sentences. You wouldn’t believe how much time I spent livening up the verbs and the sentences here! 😆
Oh, Priscilla, what a lovely piece of writing, what a wonderful journey, and how blessed those authors were to have you. Thank you so much for sharing it with us.
Amanda, as always, my gratitude to you for generously sharing space with so many of my favorite writers!
Thank you so much for reading, John, and for letting me know you connected! It was so helpful to me to reflect on the whole arc of it. What a privilege to get to be old enough to do this!
I too am grateful to Amanda, first of all for the invitation. Then for giving me editing privileges on the draft post yesterday. She created a monster—I tweaked the piece throughout the day. This was AFTER I’d polished it two months ago! 😄
This was a wonderful read, thanks Priscilla. I relate to your overwhelm in noisy/social environments. What a wonderful journey of growth and discovery - I added few of the books to my list. 🩷
This was so, so beautiful to read, and reached a particular place in my heart for those few in the world who know the struggle and beauty of being a copy editor. There is so much that resonates here! I think a lot about "hearing" an author's voice when I'm copy editing, and what an incredible balance it is to help bring out their intentions and voice without losing any of it. Priscilla, you describe it so well, and what a rare treat to read a career trajectory like this! Copy editing is so little known, and there's really no training but on the job, but once it finds you, you know you're home.
So it’s your home base too, Antonia! I didn’t know that. I’m reminded of a cartoon I saved from long ago, by Stine. A book is sitting upright (titled “Book” of course), and you can see through the middle of it because a huge heart-shaped hole has been carved all the way through. To the side sits a stack of papers in a heart shape with a dagger plunged into the middle of them. The title is “Harsh Edit.“ I’d post except I think there are copyrights on cartoons. Anyway, I saved it many years ago and have laughed many times. 😂 Thanks for taking a little time here and for letting me know you connected.
Ha! That’s a great one. One of my friends went through an awful copy edit last year on her first book and I was outraged on her behalf but also the profession’s. A good copy edit is such a beautiful thing!
I loved this so much Priscilla- what a wonderful story - and so beautifully told. The authors whose work you edited were lucky authors indeed to have an editor who approached their work with so much sensitivity and care. And now I have several books to add to my ‘must read’ list - your recommendations and your own books 📚❤️
Thanks for the good words, Karyn! 🙏 Feel free to let me know how you enjoy the books. And if you have questions or comments about mine, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. I would enjoy hearing from you.
What a wonderful and beautifully written account of finding the work you were meant to do. I'm so glad I could be a part of it during those Harper years, and that we also became friends! I can so relate to a lot of this, including loving both the writing and the editing (and needing the connection with people but also the quiet and solitude of being at home!). Although I didn't put in 10,000 hours, I often notice how learning to edit has benefited my writing. I can only aspire to be as good an editor and writer as you!
Aww, Rosana! 🙏❤️ Thank you for such sweet words! I was so glad to find you there. The years since, the hiking, the poems, the pies, the weddings—so many stories to tell! Folks, Rosana is the best pie baker I know! I only regret that I live thousands of miles away now.🥧 And yes, it's a delicate balance, isn't it, to get enough connection and enough solitude both. I keep refining the balance the farther along I go.
Haha, thanks Priscilla! I am off sugar so am no longer making pies, so you're not missing out by being so far away. My sister, who follows pie-making best practices much more strictly than I ever did, now makes amazing crusts. As for solitude and connection ... although I'm a very social introvert, I'm much more of a homebody than I used to be and keep thinking I need to get out more. I crave connection and community but need alone time, and later in life, even before covid, I've gotten accustomed to working from home. But I end up staying home more than is good for me. It's hard to strike the right balance in this, as in so many things. Life is certainly a process!
This was such an enthralling account of your professional life, told with enviable clarity and style. A lot of what you say about editing reminds me of the superb editing that I have been lucky enough to get from Amanda. It's such gift.
Thanks, Jeffrey, for letting me know you enjoyed it! Good editing, in my experience, is such a pleasure to give as well as receive. Like any gift, it nourishes both directions! I’m so glad you found Amanda. She’s nourishing such a great community.
JKG, you really know how to get me right there! Music was my other first love, and for me it's next to heaven. I grew up in a church tradition of four-part-harmony unaccompanied singing, then entered college as a music major. I tweak a piece endlessly to capture the right rhythm and cadence and tone for the context. Am always reaching for the right music—to send a bit of that heaven out with the words. Am deeply moved by your words.
So glad you enjoyed it, Linda! 🙏 You have your own special configuration of skills and talents! That’s one idea that stayed with me from Malidoma’s work: We all arrive here having gifts to deliver and needing those gifts to be received. Best wishes in your own journey to share yours.
What a beautiful story, Priscilla! I am in awe, and grateful that you found a way to use your particular talents and sensitivities without even understanding them. Grateful for all of the amazing books you have been able to give the world by working with their authors, and grateful for your own books and your Nature::Spirit podcast/newsletter. Thank you for becoming this full and rich you!
Aww, Susan! 🙏❤️ It seems a miracle to stumble forward and find at some point that it starts to make sense. The mystery and gift of the tenacious life force washing through every one of us! Is it any wonder I experience it as loving? I couldn’t have planned the trajectory that opened before me—pure gift. And of course, a gift also to be able to live long enough to see the arc of it. Do you find this too?
I have to laugh, because not only would I not have planned my life-trajectory, I would have run screaming in the night if I had known how it would go. But yes, it's a blessing to be able to look back and make sense of it all. Or at least most of it. ;)
This was a delightful piece. Thank you for sharing your tale. My kickass 10-year-old daughter is autistic, and I am greedy for stories told by autistic women, whether early- or late-diagnosed. Although I am on the HSP axis myself, and thus can easily begin to imagine what her heightened sensitivities feel like, I very much need others’ perspectives to help me with insight into her world and how I might best support her journey to kickass adulthood. So hooray for this!
Yes, more stories! I’m rooting for your kick-ass girl! And so glad she has a mom who is looking for ways to deepen empathy. As an autistic person, I feel like being understood is the single biggest gift someone can give me. And just knowing that someone WANTS to understand takes us most of the way to connecting. So just seeking to understand your daughter may be one of the most powerful supports you can give her. With you in her corner, she’s well on her way to becoming a kick-ass woman!
Thank you so much for these! I never got any notification from Substack that you had responded to my comment, so I am glad I thought to check back in. I have bookmarked those pieces to read and am looking forward to your insights.
Such a wonderful description of the challenges and joys of editing! Thank you, Priscilla, for sharing with us these years of your personal and professional growth.
🙏❤️ It was a pleasure to reflect on, Rivvy. Thank you for reading!
I’m so inspired by Priscilla’s whole trajectory! I’m an editor myself, and this piece reminds me of why I love what I do, why it’s such a privilege, and how wide open a future of editing can be for me if I stay willing and grateful. Thank you!
I’m so glad to hear this, Maura! Yes, editing is pretty fun, isn’t it? Wishing you all good things in your wide-open future! 🙏
This is a beautiful piece of writing, I found myself quite moved by the arc of your life. And the structure of this piece gives me a sense of how good your work as an editor would have been - how lucky those authors were.
Thank you so much for this, Kaspa, and for your kind attention. Yes, the structure was basically chronological, but it always kind of surprises me how much crafting it takes to make even a chronological structure sing as a story—so many choices about which moments to pull out, how to frame them, and so forth.
In writing, my own bugaboo is boring sentences. You wouldn’t believe how much time I spent livening up the verbs and the sentences here! 😆
It's one of those things where it looks effortless, but I know how much craft and effort has gone into making it seem so:)
I didn't spot any boring sentences - so that work paid off! Thanks again.
Oh, Priscilla, what a lovely piece of writing, what a wonderful journey, and how blessed those authors were to have you. Thank you so much for sharing it with us.
Amanda, as always, my gratitude to you for generously sharing space with so many of my favorite writers!
Thank you so much for reading, John, and for letting me know you connected! It was so helpful to me to reflect on the whole arc of it. What a privilege to get to be old enough to do this!
I too am grateful to Amanda, first of all for the invitation. Then for giving me editing privileges on the draft post yesterday. She created a monster—I tweaked the piece throughout the day. This was AFTER I’d polished it two months ago! 😄
Getting older is indeed a privilege. It's amazing what we eventually see, only to realize it had been there all along.
What a journey! This was a delight to read. Thank you, Priscilla and Amanda.
I’m delighted you enjoyed it, Asha! 🙏
This was a wonderful read, thanks Priscilla. I relate to your overwhelm in noisy/social environments. What a wonderful journey of growth and discovery - I added few of the books to my list. 🩷
Thanks so much, Lindsey! Hope you enjoy the books. So many wonderful books I got to work on! Some doozies too, of course. 😄
This was so, so beautiful to read, and reached a particular place in my heart for those few in the world who know the struggle and beauty of being a copy editor. There is so much that resonates here! I think a lot about "hearing" an author's voice when I'm copy editing, and what an incredible balance it is to help bring out their intentions and voice without losing any of it. Priscilla, you describe it so well, and what a rare treat to read a career trajectory like this! Copy editing is so little known, and there's really no training but on the job, but once it finds you, you know you're home.
So it’s your home base too, Antonia! I didn’t know that. I’m reminded of a cartoon I saved from long ago, by Stine. A book is sitting upright (titled “Book” of course), and you can see through the middle of it because a huge heart-shaped hole has been carved all the way through. To the side sits a stack of papers in a heart shape with a dagger plunged into the middle of them. The title is “Harsh Edit.“ I’d post except I think there are copyrights on cartoons. Anyway, I saved it many years ago and have laughed many times. 😂 Thanks for taking a little time here and for letting me know you connected.
Ha! That’s a great one. One of my friends went through an awful copy edit last year on her first book and I was outraged on her behalf but also the profession’s. A good copy edit is such a beautiful thing!
I loved this so much Priscilla- what a wonderful story - and so beautifully told. The authors whose work you edited were lucky authors indeed to have an editor who approached their work with so much sensitivity and care. And now I have several books to add to my ‘must read’ list - your recommendations and your own books 📚❤️
Thanks for the good words, Karyn! 🙏 Feel free to let me know how you enjoy the books. And if you have questions or comments about mine, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. I would enjoy hearing from you.
I most certainly will Priscilla ❤️
What a wonderful and beautifully written account of finding the work you were meant to do. I'm so glad I could be a part of it during those Harper years, and that we also became friends! I can so relate to a lot of this, including loving both the writing and the editing (and needing the connection with people but also the quiet and solitude of being at home!). Although I didn't put in 10,000 hours, I often notice how learning to edit has benefited my writing. I can only aspire to be as good an editor and writer as you!
Aww, Rosana! 🙏❤️ Thank you for such sweet words! I was so glad to find you there. The years since, the hiking, the poems, the pies, the weddings—so many stories to tell! Folks, Rosana is the best pie baker I know! I only regret that I live thousands of miles away now.🥧 And yes, it's a delicate balance, isn't it, to get enough connection and enough solitude both. I keep refining the balance the farther along I go.
Haha, thanks Priscilla! I am off sugar so am no longer making pies, so you're not missing out by being so far away. My sister, who follows pie-making best practices much more strictly than I ever did, now makes amazing crusts. As for solitude and connection ... although I'm a very social introvert, I'm much more of a homebody than I used to be and keep thinking I need to get out more. I crave connection and community but need alone time, and later in life, even before covid, I've gotten accustomed to working from home. But I end up staying home more than is good for me. It's hard to strike the right balance in this, as in so many things. Life is certainly a process!
This was such an enthralling account of your professional life, told with enviable clarity and style. A lot of what you say about editing reminds me of the superb editing that I have been lucky enough to get from Amanda. It's such gift.
Thanks, Jeffrey, for letting me know you enjoyed it! Good editing, in my experience, is such a pleasure to give as well as receive. Like any gift, it nourishes both directions! I’m so glad you found Amanda. She’s nourishing such a great community.
There are so many life lessons wrapped up in your story. It was an absolute pleasure to read. Thank you!
Thank you so much, Susan, for letting me know you connected! 🙏
I love this so much! I want to read it again and again. This piece is the music of writing...
JKG, you really know how to get me right there! Music was my other first love, and for me it's next to heaven. I grew up in a church tradition of four-part-harmony unaccompanied singing, then entered college as a music major. I tweak a piece endlessly to capture the right rhythm and cadence and tone for the context. Am always reaching for the right music—to send a bit of that heaven out with the words. Am deeply moved by your words.
I loved this post Priscilla! I cannot imagine having your skills and talents. Thank you. All my life I have loved books.
So glad you enjoyed it, Linda! 🙏 You have your own special configuration of skills and talents! That’s one idea that stayed with me from Malidoma’s work: We all arrive here having gifts to deliver and needing those gifts to be received. Best wishes in your own journey to share yours.
What a beautiful story, Priscilla! I am in awe, and grateful that you found a way to use your particular talents and sensitivities without even understanding them. Grateful for all of the amazing books you have been able to give the world by working with their authors, and grateful for your own books and your Nature::Spirit podcast/newsletter. Thank you for becoming this full and rich you!
Aww, Susan! 🙏❤️ It seems a miracle to stumble forward and find at some point that it starts to make sense. The mystery and gift of the tenacious life force washing through every one of us! Is it any wonder I experience it as loving? I couldn’t have planned the trajectory that opened before me—pure gift. And of course, a gift also to be able to live long enough to see the arc of it. Do you find this too?
I have to laugh, because not only would I not have planned my life-trajectory, I would have run screaming in the night if I had known how it would go. But yes, it's a blessing to be able to look back and make sense of it all. Or at least most of it. ;)
I know what you mean! 😀 Like, I’ve made my peace with most stuff, but this other thing—I mean really, was that NECESSARY?
Exactly! xo to you!
Back atcha!
This was a delightful piece. Thank you for sharing your tale. My kickass 10-year-old daughter is autistic, and I am greedy for stories told by autistic women, whether early- or late-diagnosed. Although I am on the HSP axis myself, and thus can easily begin to imagine what her heightened sensitivities feel like, I very much need others’ perspectives to help me with insight into her world and how I might best support her journey to kickass adulthood. So hooray for this!
Yes, more stories! I’m rooting for your kick-ass girl! And so glad she has a mom who is looking for ways to deepen empathy. As an autistic person, I feel like being understood is the single biggest gift someone can give me. And just knowing that someone WANTS to understand takes us most of the way to connecting. So just seeking to understand your daughter may be one of the most powerful supports you can give her. With you in her corner, she’s well on her way to becoming a kick-ass woman!
And, @Rebecca Wisent, you might enjoy a couple other pieces I did on finding out I'm autistic: 33. Being Autistic https://priscillastuckey.substack.com/p/33-being-autistic-8ee and 38. With Autism It All Made Sense https://priscillastuckey.substack.com/p/38-with-autism-it-all-made-sense. The earlier one was about a year into the process, the other about two years. More power to your daughter!
Thank you so much for these! I never got any notification from Substack that you had responded to my comment, so I am glad I thought to check back in. I have bookmarked those pieces to read and am looking forward to your insights.
Your story has given me so much hope and inspired me to start sending audacious résumé’s! Now I just have to figure out where to send them…
There’s always a tricky part, isn’t there. 😉 Thanks, Ellen, for taking the time to read, and all good wishes for your search!